


Wealth and Prosperity

by gansey_is_our_king



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam is going to college, F/M, Friendship, I don't know does this count as fluff?, M/M, Mint plants, The Gangsey being dorks together, This actually has a happy ending wow, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:56:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7496517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gansey_is_our_king/pseuds/gansey_is_our_king
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam is going to college.  Gansey brings him a goodbye present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wealth and Prosperity

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea from a friend and when I said I wanted to write a fan fiction about it I was kind of joking but then my feelings got out of control and this happened.

The road that wound from Henrietta to Singers Falls was dappled with sun and shadow from the trees that stretched up on either side. Adam turned up the volume on his radio and rolled down the windows in his rusted old car and breathed the fresh thick air as it came at him.

  
It smelled like damp earth and pollen and dust.

  
It smelled like summer even though summer was almost over.

  
The Barns sprawled ahead. Adam craned his neck to see around the bend and felt his heart expand inside his chest when he saw the familiar farm house and the barns and sheds that were scattered around it. Opal heard the engine and darted out to meet the car as it approached. She loped around it while Adam drove with little regard for her own safety—her little hooves spraying gravel and grass up behind her. She wore a gnawed watch and strap around her wrist. Adam had returned it to her after Gansey had come back—and since then the face had become so scuffed and chipped that it was almost impossible to read the time.

  
Adam parked his car beside the charcoal BMW and got out.

  
The rusted door hinges creaked.

  
Opal squealed in delight and leapt at him. She hooked her arms around his waist.

  
Adam felt a warm swell start in his chest as she hid her face in his shirt hem.

  
It was hard to believe that last year she had existed in a dream world.

  
She felt real. She smelled real—like grass and damp earth and animals. Her mouth was stained blue from berries or mud or both. Her enormous dark eyes peered up at him as Adam reached down to tuck some hair back behind one pointed ear. The hair had grown out a lot since he had first met her. Fine blond strands stuck out from underneath the muddied skull cap that she refused to remove no matter what Ronan said.

  
Adam hauled her up and propped her on his hip as he headed to the farm house.

  
Ronan waited for him on the porch with his hands stuck in his pockets. He smirked as Adam got closer and then snaked one arm out to pull him in. Opal screeched. It was not so much a human sound as it was a bird sound. Adam leaned on Ronan while Opal kicked her hooves around his waist and clung to them both.

  
It was a warm and tangled hug that made his heart crash inside his chest.

  
His mouth stretched to form a grin as Ronan leaned over and nuzzled his neck.

  
“Kerah!” Opal screamed.

  
Adam was not sure if she was disgusted or delighted as Ronan squeezed his wrist in one hand. The old leather bracelets slithered across his skin. He let Opal down and her hooves hit the deck boards with a hollow thud.

  
Ronan kissed him and then pulled on his hand.

  
“Come on. Everyone else is gonna be here soon.”

  
“Everyone else?” Adam said in confusion.

  
Ronan flashed him a wild and wicked grin.

  
“Oh. Yeah. This is a going away party. Did I forget to tell you?”

  
“Yes!”

  
Adam realized a moment later that Ronan was being sarcastic. He frowned.

  
“You could have at least mentioned it before I came out here.”

  
Ronan bumped open the front door with his hip. “No. Because if I had mentioned it before you came out here you would have found some excuse to work late or whatever.”

  
Adam was not sure he could argue with that.

  
He let Ronan drag him inside the farm house and kiss him again and then he excused himself to clean up in the bathroom. He locked the door. The window above the toilet was open and a cool summer breeze whistled in. It carried an eerie tune with it that could have been his imagination—it was hard to tell when he was here. There was so much dream stuff mixed in with stuff from the real world that Adam was never sure what to believe.

  
He splashed his face with cold water and stared at his reflection in the mirror for a moment before he turned his back.

  
He still missed Cabeswater.

  
It was an older ache that felt muted and dull after all this time.

  
It was faded like the bracelets Ronan wore looped around his wrist.

  
But it was still an ache and he noticed it more when he was alone.

  
Adam wandered down the hall to the bedroom he shared with Ronan. He still rented his flat at the church and he slept there sometimes—but not as much as he had expected he would since school had ended. It was easier to stay here. It was easier to sleep with Ronan wrapped around him and wake up beside him. It was easier to kiss Opal on the head as he went out the door to work. It was easier to remember that his own dreams were harmless when he lived with a wild dreamer.

  
Adam pulled open his drawer in the dresser.

  
Ronan had emptied it for him without fanfare a month after Gansey came back and since then Adam had been sure to leave extra clothes behind each time that he spent the night. It was almost full now. Adam dug out a clean shirt and some jeans that were not stained with engine grease and put them on. He dumped his old clothes in the hamper to be washed later.

  
He returned to the kitchen just in time to see the glorious Camaro roll in beside his car from the window above the sink. He could hear the roar of the engine inside the house and the small tuft of dark hair that was visible behind the wheel told him that Blue was in the driver seat. Gansey sat beside her in a terrible aquamarine polo shirt and Adam recognized Henry Cheng as he leaned over from the back.

  
Chainsaw or Opal screeched from the other room.

  
Blue cut the engine at the same time as Ronan banged in from the back yard.

  
He smelled like summer and sweat and gasoline from the barbecue.

  
Adam listened as sneakers scuffed across the front porch. Blue knocked on the door a moment later—but she did not wait for someone to answer it before she pushed it open and stepped inside the farm house. Adam met her in the hall with Opal. Blue hugged him and then leaned over to greet the little dream girl.

  
Adam watched Blue pick some grass from between her teeth and flicked it away.

  
Henry came next. He waved at Adam.

  
“Heya!”

  
“Cheng. Hey.”

  
Henry shuffled toward the kitchen with Blue and Opal as Gansey squeezed inside the house last. The front door closed with a snap. Adam saw that Gansey carried something in both hands. He carried a plant—and when Adam extended his knuckles for the usual fist bump Gansey thrust the pot at him instead.

  
“I got you this.”

  
His voice was uncertain and after a moment Adam realized that Gansey was not sure this had been a good idea. Not because it was a plant. Because it was a gift. Because the old Adam Parrish would never accept a gift from someone—especially not when that someone was Richard Campbell Gansey III—without comments about pity or charity.

  
But this was none of those things.

  
The new Adam Parrish had learned how and when to swallow his pride.

  
The new Adam Parrish recognized this as a simple gesture of friendship.

  
The new Adam Parrish had grown up a lot.

  
He took the plant from Gansey. “Uh. Thanks.” He was nervous too—and he heard his Henrietta accent slip out before he could clip it back. He examined the plant. It was small and light in his hands but it was also very much alive. It would be easy enough to fit the pot on his desk or set it on the window sill in his new dorm room in Cambridge.

  
He rubbed the soft green leaves between his finger and thumb and then caught a faint sharp scent that he recognized.

  
“Wait. Is this a…”

  
Gansey finished his sentence for him. “Mint plant. Yes.”

  
Ronan barked out a laugh. “Are you being fucking serious right now?” he said.

  
Adam could not tame the smile that crept across his face. “Ah. Thanks.”

  
Blue and Henry both snickered from the kitchen. Opal crept up beside Adam and tried to stick her hand in the dirt inside the pot. Adam pulled a single leaf free and held it out for her to take. She snatched it from him and crammed it in her mouth and chewed on it with her usual childish enthusiasm before she offered him a grin.

  
Ronan rolled his eyes. “Brat.”

  
Gansey turned back to Adam and smiled. “Mint is supposed to bring wealth and prosperity.” He said this in his scholar voice—the one that he often reserved for discussions related to Glendower. Adam realized with a sharp pang in his chest that it had been months since he had last heard it. He felt a sudden and terrible fondness for Gansey.

  
This was too much.

  
But—

  
He reigned the protest in before it left his mouth. He knew he would regret it later.

  
Gansey rubbed his thumb across his lip.

  
The next time he spoke he sounded like Gansey-the-boy again.

  
“I thought that it would be a fitting goodbye present… seeing as you are about to leave to pursue your future.”

  
Ronan snorted. “Seeing as he is about to get thousands of dollars in debt in student loans."

  
Gansey frowned a little but did not refute the comment. Adam set the plant on the kitchen counter. He was careful to push it to the middle where Opal could not reach it.

  
“Thanks.”

  
It did not quite feel like enough to say that.

  
He offered his fist instead. This time Gansey bumped his knuckles.

  
“So is that the Gansey family secret?” Blue piped up from the kitchen. “Mint is supposed to bring wealth and prosperity.” She did a passable imitation of Gansey that made Adam and Henry both laugh and Ronan sneer at her in approval.  Chainsaw flapped down to land on the counter beside the mint plant and tilted her head to regard it with suspicion.

  
“Kerah!” Opal cried out for no apparent reason.

  
Adam stood there in the kitchen and looked around at them all.

His heart crashed in his chest and noise roared in his good ear and he realized that he was in love—with this place and the familiar smell that he recognized as boxwood and moss and with every single person and dream creature that was here with him. He even felt that he loved Henry Cheng in that moment despite the fact that Adam did not know him all that well.

  
Ronan slid one arm around his waist and held him from behind.

  
Adam sighed and let Ronan rest his chin on the shoulder next to his good ear.

  
He could hear his breath as it brushed his neck. He could smell grass and gasoline.

  
He closed his eyes and smiled.

  
This was his home. 

 


End file.
